


Leiutenant Javert

by Darkhorse



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Army, Gen, M/M, Modern Era, Slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-28
Updated: 2013-02-28
Packaged: 2017-12-03 22:41:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/703435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkhorse/pseuds/Darkhorse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern AU, first in a series. Javert is in the Army and returns home from deployment to his partner Jean, and their adopted daughter, Cosette.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leiutenant Javert

**Author's Note:**

> Set in Britain  
> Not quite sure where this is going, but I look forward to the journey. Minor slash, but nothing really explict

The troops filed off the bus in full array before wheeling to face the crowd in two lines. Two lines of solidarity, rather than solidity, for there were gaps in the ranks. Severn, he already knew about them and noted them absently, searching out one face.  
There he was, Back row, right end. Distant, always distant. That alone would have given him away, ignoring the fact he was head and shoulders above them.

“DIIIIIISMISS” The ranks broke arrangement as his compatriots ran to their families and visa-versa.  
“Javert!” The call was like a bugle to his ears He turned his head slowly, eyes calm. There, smiling his ears off, was Valjean. It took only a few long strides, dodging through the press, before they were face to face. There was what seemed like a long moment of silence and he felt the other man yank the kitbag, which served as his suitcase, off his shoulder. Then, nervous of being noticed, he glanced down at the floor.  
“Where's Cosette?”  
“She's at school”  
He followed Valjean's lead as they headed across the stone of the parade ground, unconsciously shortening his stride so they fell into step. Only when they were there did he stop, tilting his head back to the wind and the dampness. It was a balm on his face and his senses, for as he sniffed there was no dryness, and no feel of sand about his face. He was truly away from that place. Eventually he opened his eyes. Valjean was standing, holding the passenger door a tiny bit ajar. He gave him a grateful smile as he slipped in, sneaking the tiniest brush of hand on hand as he did so and being rewarded with a small, secret smile.

They were out of the barracks before either spoke again.  
“I would have brought Cosette, but she had a test today, and it's such a long way.”  
Javert nodded, fighting jet-lag like he'd been told to “She's changed school hasn't she? Back in September?”  
“mhmm, up to secondary school and fitting in well, as far as I can tell.”  
“No troubles about...” He left the sentence hanging, Jean would understand.  
The other man shook his head “They've sneaked in extra tuition to get her up to level, same as the other one did, but it's been unobtrusive. If anything I think she's better off here than she was at primary.”  
“Growing up though” He dropped it flippantly into the gap  
He laughed as Jean nearly banged his head in exasperation “I know, I know... But I've got you.”

 

Javert felt a twitch up his spine and flinched away, staring out the window at the motorway instead. It was so different back here, dark and grey rather than sand, with leaves on the trees that swayed as a lorry passed them. Some no doubt, would be cursing the damp summer, but he couldn't think of a better welcome home. A home he wasn't sure he was going to get to at some points of these year.  
“I know it's against Regs, but you can nap if you want.”  
Idly he rested the back of his head against the car, twisting so he was semi lounging across the diagonal of the seat “that, would be an offence on section 2, chapter 4 part 60 page 1, Jean, and you know it.”  
He saw the other man's lip twitch slightly into a smile “Just shut your eyes, Lieutenant Javert, until you've got some sense back under that clipped mop of yours”  
The mention of his rank was what he'd been waiting for, for it effectively constituted an order. He let his weighted lids fall closed. Very distantly he heard Jean turn the CD player on  
“I hear the wind call your name  
It calls me back home again  
It sparks up the fire - a flame that still burns  
Oh it's to you I'll always return”

A smile slipped unbidden to his face as he drifted off.

A hand on his arm, squeezing gently, disturbed him and he shifted to discover that he had a kink in his neck and that the car was no longer on a motorway, but driving along a smaller road, a country lane perhaps. He opened his eyes to see Jean still watching the road, but tilting to glance over at him. Silently, with a world of meaning, he covered the awakening hand with his own, pressing back. Apparently of it's own violation, Jean's hand turned so they were palm to palm and javert wove their fingers toghether into one hand. As he tightened the grip Jean looked over, smiling  
“Missed you”  
Likewise”  
By unwritten understanding, Jean pulled over and they shared a breif kiss. It was chaste, light, nothing really. But it was the nothings as much as the somethings that he'd missed for nine months. Nine months in hell  
Then they pulled apart, Jean turning the car out again “And while we're on that sort of thing Stefan, you're Cosette's uncle from now until we get home  
He stared at him in incredulity. It wasn't the first time they'd resorted to such subterfuge, but that was a bit much, to be complicit barely three hours after seeing his partner again.  
“Decided I'm not good enough?” It was half-serious to.  
Jean sighed “No! But they asked about Family circumstances, and I could hardly admit to the Mother Superior of a Convent that I had a male partner, could I?”  
They're eyes met at exactly the wrong moment and they both cracked, Javert tilting his head back to imitate a wolf, as he always did when he was tickled pink on something.  
As they both struggled to contain themselves he reached under his fatigues and brought a Crucifix “I'm Christian”  
“A protestant...”  
They were still chuckling as Jean turned down a side road and parked. The sign nearby read Petit-Picpus, Catholic school and Boarding for Girls.

They walked to the gate, side by side. Javert watched with concealed interest as Jean nodded to a few of the parents gathered about the gate, being introduced when he had to be. There seemed to be an air of respect as people realised where he'd just got back from, no awkward, in his opinion at least, questions.  
Everything was cut off as a huge bell started tolling somewhere in the complex of old buildings. After a moment, the students appeared, dressed in demure black with white collars. They were almost uniform, especially with their hair covered, but Javert found himself involuntarily searching for one face.

The conversation had been dictated all through class, and she found it hard to break the mold now the bell had gone. She and Catherine walked side by side out the front doors, still disussing the various symbols of the saints and how they were depicted in stained glass  
“Cosette?”  
“Hmm, St Francis is a wolf, isn't he?”  
But Catherine had paused and was clearly distracted “Cosette, who's the tall man standing next to your Father. The one in that funny colour suit.”  
She snapped out of the daze, scanning the group of adults franticly. Of course, because she was so desperate, she missed him entirely “Where? Where.”  
Catherine remained steady “You're father is next to the gate post, and the other man is standing his shoulder, gripping the fence.”  
Now she saw him... and bolted across the tarmac, decorum flying out the window  
“UNCLE!”

Javert laughed as the young girl sprinted towards them, skirts snatched up to her ankles and head-covering flapping like a tail. She was oblivious to some of the older nuns calling to her and demanding she slow down. She was also oblivious to the fact she was running straight for a fence.  
“Right Wheel”  
That got through and she dashed through the gate, balancing on one foot as she turned. He reached down and grabbed her as she caught a foot in her dress, using his height to swing her up in the air. For once the fact that she was getting too big for it didn't matter, and he laughed with her as her arms flew around his neck in a throttle hug  
“You're back, you're back, you are back.”

One of the nuns came bustling up, face angry “Euphrasie, what is the meaning of this behavior. Tis most unseemly.”  
Cosette didn't release him, perching on his hip and in his arms as she answered “Beg penance Sister, but my uncle, the one in Afganistan, he's home.”  
The nun looked him up and down, like he was a naughty school boy, then gave a curt nod. “For once then, we will allow that God has granted you this joy, you must thank him for your uncle's deliverance.  
Cosette nodded fervently, hiding a wild smile behind decorum “Oh I will Sister, I will”  
Then the Nun glared at him, and put her down, the good lord gave us feet for a reason.”  
He did so ignoring a twinkle in Jean's eye. With Cosette effectively limpetted to him they left the gate crush, extracting themselves relatively easily.

Cosette slipped into the back seat, but then slid all the way over. Javert paused in the act of shutting the door. Her grey eyes, so serious for her age, were glinting with delight and she tapped the seat behind the passenger. He smiled and slipped in next her  
“Pere” She reached over, seeming so mature as she took his hand with her own small one.  
The smile didn't, wouldn't, leave his face. Cosette's joy that they were together was infectious, and he knew if it wasn't for decorum, and her long skirt she'd be in the middle of the back, leaning against him.

It had been unsettling, the first time that happened. They had been up to ears in adoption farago, but had managed, (mostly because as an Army Officer on Emergency Leave, he couldn't exactly go AWOL), to persuade the authorities that they could take Cosette out for the day. They'd caught the bus to the sea and gone swimming. And on the way home, tucked between the two of them, she'd fallen asleep. Up until now, she'd always been closer to Jean than to him, but this time she snuggled against him until she was n his lap. He'd awkwardly wrapped an arm around her, uncertain exactly what to do. But the trust melted his heart, that which had once been stone, for only Jean to chip at, became clay in her hands.  
As they drove towards home he pulled his thoughts from Cosette and met Jean's smile in the rear-view mirror, dropping a wink that would have had the platoon privates gawking had they seen.

**Author's Note:**

> Con-crit welcome


End file.
